Cruel World
by SheCameInPieces
Summary: "He needed me." She paused, fighting so hard to keep her tears from falling, to keep her already broken heart from shattering. "And I couldn't save him." She breathed. / One-shot.


**Summary:** "He needed me." She paused, fighting so hard to keep her tears from falling, to keep her already broken heart from shattering. "And I couldn't save him." She breathed. / What if Naruto had been brought up at Ino's twin brother in secret? What if the Uchiha massacre hadn't happened? What if Naruto had reached his breaking point and he'd been the one to desert the village instead of Sasuke? One-shot story.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Naruto.

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Genma came home to an empty house. It'd been like this for the past month. He'd come home, expecting to find Ino lounging around or cooking something in the kitchen like she usually was, only to have her nowhere to be found. Except, he knew where she was. After the first week he had followed her trail and found her curled up in a ball at the Memorial Stone. He had no idea why because so far she had been spared from the heartbreak of losing a comrade to the life of a shinobi. The first time he had asked her about it she had deflected the question and changed the subject. He had tried again and again to get an answer out of her, but she eventually just stopped talking altogether. He suspected that she'd been at the stone since he had left for work that morning. He decided to give her a couple more hours before he would get to the bottom of why she was being so distant. She was twenty-one now and not once had she acted that way for the five years that they had been together. Genma sighed. He'd put the issue at the back of his mind for now while he cleaned up and had a shower.

XoXoXo

Just as he thought, there she was, lying in a ball right in front of the Memorial Stone. He stood behind the coverage of a tree and just watched her. She seemed completely still. He would have thought that she was asleep if it wasn't for the fact that he could vaguely make out her irregular breathing. He frowned.

"I know you're there, Genma." Ino suddenly spoke. He figured as much. It wasn't like he was trying to mask his presence. Genma sighed before he walked over to his partner and sat down beside her, close but not touching her. He didn't speak. He knew that she knew what his unasked question was. "It's our birthday tomorrow." She whispered. Our? So many questions were running through Genma's mind but still he didn't speak. He waited patiently. Ino would talk when she was ready. "Do you remember a kid named Naruto Uzumaki?" She asked as she sat up and leant against him. His arms encircled around her body as he thought about the question.

"Naruto Uzumaki?" He asked, more to himself than to her. "Yeah, he was the kid with the nine-tails in him." He said softly. Genma didn't really know much about the kid except for the fact that he was around Ino's age, was a jinchūriki, and was treated like crap by most of the villagers. "He left some time ago, right? Why do you ask?"

Ino didn't answer. Genma didn't press for one. He waited for her to be ready to speak like he always did. "Ten years." Was all she said. Genma sighed. Where was she going with this? She took a deep breath. "It's been ten years, today, since he left the village – a day before our eleventh birthday."

Genma raised an eyebrow. "Our?"

Ino nodded slowly. "No one except our family knows this, but the day after Naruto was born and his parents had been killed, he was given to my parents to raise because of the fact that his physical traits were similar to those of my clan. I was born that same day and we were brought up at twins." Both of Genma's eyebrows raised. This was definitely news to him. So many more questions poured into his head, but he pushed them aside. He'd wait for her to continue on her own. She took another deep breath before she spoke. "We weren't allowed to tell anyone about us being twins because the higher ups thought that it would endanger my clan." Ino gave an uncharacteristically bitter laugh. "But now that I think of it, I'm sure they only did it as some sick way to get back at the beast inside of…of my brother." Ino clenched and unclenched her jaw. She could feel herself becoming more and more emotionally unstable. She felt tears beginning to form within her blue, blue eyes. "He was ridiculed and hated for something that he had no part in. All because he was chosen as the host for that _beast_ – something _everyone_ knew he had no control over since he was _just born_ when he was chosen. Every night he'd come home upset. Every night he'd crawl into my bed and silently cry. Every day I could do nothing but watch as those who should know better, people who called themselves _adults_, gave cruel remarks and looked at him with such disgust in their eyes. I was forbidden from helping him and I just couldn't understand why." She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. "He needed me." She paused again, fighting so hard to keep her tears from falling, to keep her already broken heart from completely shattering. "And I couldn't save him." She breathed. That was it. She was officially done, officially broken. Her tears ran freely down her face as she sobbed in Genma's arms.

Genma didn't know what to say. He didn't know what he should do. So he did the only thing he could – he held her in his arms until she finally cried herself to sleep. Genma clenched his teeth as he felt his anger rise. What kind of world did they live in that such horrible circumstances could be placed upon the shoulders of a mere child? He knew the answer. A cruel world.

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This is my first Naruto fanfic. This one was a bit dark, but I got the idea from the Catching Fire movie, when Peeta and Katniss go to District 11 and Katniss talks about Rue and how she couldn't save her. I always cry when I watch that scene and I cried when I wrote this story. It always breaks my heart when Naruto has flashbacks of when he was a child and how he was treated so cruelly. Anyways, I hope you like it!

– S.C.I.P.


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